


Intrusions

by TAFKAB



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Awkward Boners, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Exhibitionism, Flirting, M/M, Public Nudity, Shyness, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 01:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6100981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TAFKAB/pseuds/TAFKAB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though the rest of the company are eager to bathe, Gimli and Samwise are both shy-- for similar reasons.</p><p>Just another little bit of fluff while I'm waiting for work to calm down enough for me to be able to tackle the really challenging section I've reached in the long fic!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intrusions

_Blast the blasted elf._

“His kind have no morals, no propriety. Never mind the tales of my own kin frolicking in the land of Elrond—I am sure none ever showed such immodesty as he does now!” Gimli hissed to Aragorn, who laughed. 

“It is so cold my balls and cock shrivel at the thought of water, but he must strip naked and go into it as if it were a summer’s day with the sun baking down and heat like a wall!”

“It is a waterfall, and such is his delight. Look at him preen,” Aragorn said with rueful wonder, peeling off his boots to wade into the stream.

“Must I?” Gimli snapped. “Surely that is not required.” And yet he would, if none would see him at it. He would drink of the sight until he drowned. Yet he had only glimpsed the barest hint of pale flesh, though it was carved to a perfection that would make the greatest sculptors weep, moving marble kissed with the living hue of pink. He chanced to see the flexing bunch and glide of muscle in the elf’s bare arm as he began to strip himself. No more, but it was enough. 

Now Gimli ached, and a fever was set to burn in his loins that might turn all the waters of this place to steam, if they poured upon him. He did not need to see the elf bare and preening beneath the sheet of diamond spray. Imagination would suffice.

He sat himself down on a great rock near the waterway and stared away from the elf with such fascination it must seem to the others as if all the mysteries of Mahal were carved in letters of fire on the cliff face opposite.

The others decided to bathe too, though with much less relish than Legolas. They stripped in cautious stages and picked their way about the edge of the stream. Only Samwise and Gimli were left. Samwise sat beside him, and he too took up the study of the wall, finding it just as interesting as the dwarf.

“That Mr. Legolas is a strange one, and no mistake!” Sam muttered, wretched, though Gimli suspected the elf was not the true source of his shyness. “The sun is warm enough, but that water is like ice and all, though he doesn’t seem to feel it!” Gimli half-turned, polite, to listen. Sam made a tiny gesture toward his lap to illustrate and Gimli could not miss his meaning. Without conscious will, his eyes flickered to the side to verify, an agonizing lapse that burned the truth of Sam’s statement deep into his brain before he jerked his flaming face back to resume his study of the cliff and the desperate, silent battle of wills he was losing with his own lap.

“ _Ma sazbadi mâ ni ansâkh!_ ” Gimli uttered, a fervent plea to his maker.

“Whatever you said, I’m sure I second it.” Sam sounded miserable. He folded his hands over the disobedient parts in question.

“That only makes it worse,” Gimli chided. “Look at the stones instead. See that narrow vein of quartz there? Notice the white amidst the grey. It may seem entirely and completely unremarkable, unworthy of our interest in any way. But it indicates this is rock that was formed in the fires of the earth. The grey formed first, solidifying from molten rock. Then later, the cooling rock split under pressure and heated water bearing minerals flowed in along the cracks, leaving the quartz behind. That is called an intrusion.”

“Is it?” Sam gave half his attention to Gimli’s instruction. Gimli could hear Legolas calling to Frodo, inviting him to come up and appreciate the marvels of bathing in the waterfall. Judging by the worried hiss of Sam’s breath, Frodo had decided to accept. 

“It formed very quickly, by the scale of such things, and is milky white. If it formed slowly it would be clear,” Gimli continued, dogged, hearing splashing and the warm, happy laughter of an elf alongside the higher tones of a halfling. 

“There is a rainbow in the spray!” Legolas called to everyone. “Come and see!”

“There may also be brownish stains in the crystals. They come from the presence of iron,” Gimli plowed ahead, stubborn, and Sam nodded, biting his lip. His eyes kept wanting to wander. No doubt he was concerned for Frodo’s safety as well as tempted by his skin.

Not that Gimli shared such worries. Legolas was as lithe and agile as--

As nothing he had ever before seen, the lines of him pale and clean, his slender back bowing in a perfect arc as he tilted his head back to pass his flowing hair beneath the water.

Gimli jerked his gaze back to the cliff in desperation. “Other minerals may be found mingled with quartz, and are more comely than iron. The quartz may turn to agate, with all shades of brown and pink, or to citrine, or even be found in shades of green or amethyst. Such things are precious to my people.”

Sam’s toes were curling, and his head had turned. “Put your feet in the water. It will help,” Gimli advised, though his stout boots prevented him from taking his own advice. 

“Come join us, Sam, Gimli!” Frodo called. “It is not so cold once you’re wet.”

“They are stubborn, are they not?” Legolas laughed. “We must go and fetch them in so they may be clean.”

Gimli muttered beneath his breath. “Mahal’s hairy--”

“Toes,” Sam finished the curse for him, voice nearly a groan.

“Not all of us love the chill or the water as you do, elf!” Gimli blustered aloud. “I will sit here with Sam, that he not feel alone among the company!”

“The two of you will bathe, or we will not share a flet with you,” Legolas teased merrily. “Come in! The other halflings bear it well enough. Come, Frodo. We will fetch them.”

“There’s nothing else for it,” Sam muttered, wretched. “Hurry and strip. In as quick as we may, that the cold water will aid us!”

Gimli glanced toward the falls, where Legolas was delayed, helping Frodo cross the slippery rocks.

“Curse it, you’re right,” he muttered, and their clothing flew in a hasty rain: surcoat and armor, coat and weskit, breeches, boots. The two of them fled off the rock and into the pool, Gimli first. He caught Sam and helped him find his depth.

Sam uttered a strangled shriek as the chilly water touched his privates. The halfling was right; it was quite painfully helpful in shrinking unwanted problems before they might be noticed.

Legolas and Frodo made their way to the stone. Mischief danced in their eyes as they stood looking down, neither wearing a stitch, their wet skins gilded in the sun. There was nowhere safe to look but their faces. Gimli felt Sam’s small hand tighten on his, and gave a reassuring squeeze of his own: partners in a shared and silent yearning for the untouchable.

“Our threat has worked, but you will not escape the falls so easily as this,” Frodo smiled. “Come, Sam. They are worth the cold.” He stretched out his hand. Helpless, Sam released Gimli’s and took it, awkwardly clambering out of the water to follow his master. 

Legolas tilted his head at Gimli, his lips curving, threatening to part with knowing laughter. His eyes shone with merriment, and his gaze held Gimli’s for a long moment. Gimli wondered how much and what he thought he saw.

“There is great beauty here,” the elf said, enigmatic. “Come and share it with me.”

“I can see it well enough from here.” Indeed he could; the elf stood so close Gimli could almost reach out and touch him.

“But you cannot touch it.” Legolas rested his weight on one foot as he pointed to the waterfall, the pose highlighting the narrow span of his waist and the curve of his pale arse. Gimli’s mouth went dry.

Flirtation, mockery, or innocent oblivion? He could not tell.

“Why should I wish to touch something that does not interest me enough to look at it?” Gimli turned half-aside, wishing to seem careless, and scooped water over his shoulder. The elf watched the rivulets run down along his flesh.

“Does it not?” The elf said softly. “I find the view very interesting indeed.” He held out his hand and Gimli, half-unwilling, set his own in it. 

Gimli let the elf lead him to the falls. He took advantage of lagging behind to fill his eyes with all they would hold of that luscious arse, unmarked and perfect, soft skin stretched taut over lean muscle.

The water was indeed cold, and everyone hurried to wash and get out, scrambling back into their clothing and rushing away to warm by the fire. Legolas pressed onward, a guide straight out of an ale-soaked, lust-fueled dream. He led them through a haze of spray to the edge of the fall, where tumbled rock made a dubious path into the river.

“The water has undercut the cliff in many places,” he murmured to Gimli. “But it seems sturdy enough.”

“You can never tell what might wash over the top of a riverfall,” Gimli muttered.

“Do not be afraid,” Legolas’s eyes shimmered with amusement, and Gimli was tempted to demur, but he was enthralled by the vision before him, and he followed the elf out along the treacherous way. 

Legolas had the nimbleness of a cat, moving with ease on the shifting stones. Gimli clasped his hand, muttering and cursing as he slipped and stubbed his toes. The water settled on his skin like a skim of ice, beading in his hair and beard. 

The elf turned to him, his eyes soft above his smile. “You wear a crown of the finest diamond dew,” Legolas said, and Gimli flushed to hear the tone in his voice. “Look up!”

A rainbow arced above their heads and below their feet, caught in the spray. It formed a perfect circle, and they stood in the center. Behind them the water sang, a steady hiss and murmur. Before them the pool ruffled and stirred, its surface broken by Frodo and Sam, who stood side by side. Sam hovered anxiously over his master, whose wound from Moria had not yet healed, the ugly mark of the orc’s spear lingering in a dark bruise upon his side. He bathed Frodo tenderly, helping him lift his arm, touching him with reverence and care, moving on to scrub his back and thread his fingers through Frodo’s curls. 

“Such friendship--no, love--is a priceless thing,” Legolas murmured. “I feel almost guilty to witness it.”

“Aye,” Gimli agreed, gruff. “That is so.” He thought Sam trembled to touch Frodo, but he was too far away to be sure, and the spray formed a soft white mist between them. 

“Come with me. ” Legolas turned away from the halflings and tipped his head back. Spreading the pale, slender columns of his legs in a way that made Gimli’s breath rasp in his throat, he stood for a moment, lifting his arms amidst the torrent, and stepped lazily through the wall of water.

Gimli ducked through more cautiously and found the elf standing in a dim, wet cavern where the falls had undercut the cliff, eating away a layer of softer rock. Light filtered through the falls, dancing and dappling on the granite. The stone here held a warmer hue, more brown than grey, but the threads of quartz still shot through it. Legolas reached out his hand in wonder and ran the tips of his fingers along one white line.

“I heard you speaking to Samwise.” He gazed at the stone. “I had seen such markings within the stone, but I did not know how they came to be.” He pulled his wet hair to the side. “Would you be friends with me, Gimli, for the wizard’s sake?”

“I would,” Gimli mumbled, embarrassed. He realized the elf held a bath-cloth in his hand, outstretched toward him. He swallowed hard.

The son of Glóin took up the elf’s challenge and stepped close, draping the rough wet cloth over fingers and palm, and set it against the elf’s finely cut shoulder. He was warm despite the chill of the water, and Gimli spread his fingers, warming his hands as though at a fire, spreading the cloth and bathing the elf with long, sturdy strokes. 

Impossible to touch such purity, to shape such form with palm and fingers, without feeling reverence. This elf, who held such lightness and power and speed in him, such fierce strength and skill—made himself so vulnerable under Gimli’s hands he shivered to see it. Legolas bent his neck forward, his spine bowed to let Gimli touch him however he might: delivering himself up with perfect faith.

Slender hands, which wielded a bow with deadly skill, folded peacefully over one thigh as Legolas knelt.

This was how the stones grew: Formed and set in solid strength, then beset with unyielding force until they cracked and splintered, bubbling heat surging forth to fill the cracks, making something new and precious grow within. 

Gimli dropped the cloth and shaped Legolas with his bare hands, stepping closer behind him. Like Samwise, he did not venture more than was asked or offered; let this first venture of give and take be enough. Slowly he covered the elf’s bare back with cleansing caresses, scooping crystalline water in his cupped hands to rinse.

Legolas looked over his shoulder, his lids heavy with pleasure, smiling. Then Gimli turned and was tended in kind, the elf’s hands elegant and gentle, exquisitely careful. Gimli felt his whole skin waken, yearning toward the elf, _aching_ ….

But he let it be, that it might grow in its own time. The slower the crystal formed, the greater its clarity. He felt himself humming low in his chest, a resonant note that filled the small chamber.

“Mr. Legolas? Mr. Gimli?” Sam’s call interrupted the moment, diffident and worried. “The two of you aren’t drownded, I hope?”

“No.” Legolas laughed softly. “We will join you now.” He offered Gimli his hand, and this time the dwarf took it and followed readily.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Ma sazbadi mâ ni ansâkh!_ : Lead us not into temptation!


End file.
